Cops: 3 shot at 'trouble house' in Englewood

Police work the scene where multiple people were shot in a drive-by shortly after 1:20 p.m. May 15, 2019, in the 6200 block of South Justine Street in the Englewood neighborhood.

Police work the scene where multiple people were shot in a drive-by shortly after 1:20 p.m. May 15, 2019, in the 6200 block of South Justine Street in the Englewood neighborhood. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)

A man and two women were shot Wednesday afternoon in the Englewood neighborhood, just blocks from a police station.

The shooting happened shortly after 1:20 p.m. in the 6200 block of South Justine Street, police said.

The three — a 27-year-old woman, a 25-year-old woman and a 28-year-old man — told police they heard gunshots and felt pain, Chicago police said. One victim was found in the front yard of a vacant home, another in a rear yard and the third inside the home, police said.

While authorities initially indicated the shooting may have been a drive-by, residents said as many as two gunmen may have approached on foot.

The 27-year-old was grazed in the right cheek and was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center. The man suffered a gunshot wound to the right arm and was also taken to U. of C.

The 25-year-old woman was shot in the lower left leg and left hip and was recovering at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.

Their conditions had all been stabilized, police said.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, neighbors, many of them older people and longtime residents, began to trickle out on to the block that was divided up yellow and red police tape. One woman said she heard six shots from her home a block away, while a man who lives about 50 yards from the home said he heard as many as 15 shots.

A few doors south of the single-level, brown bungalow where officers focused their attention, a 28-year resident of the block said she hoped the shooting would finally lead authorities to shutter the home that she and several neighbors said was known to traffic drugs and women.

The home was taken over by drug-dealing squatters after a larger house across the street was boarded up by police.

Residents previously organized to get the first trouble house closed only to have that activity move to their blocks, she said, watching as police protected the crime scene.

“You got drug deals, heroin, maybe weed,” said the woman, who asked not to be named as she spoke from her front porch. “You see prostitutes are half-dressed. And we’ve got children on this block. I don’t want to see that stuff,” the woman said.

“We feel it should be boarded up. They’re not making the block any safer — shut it down!”